Chronicle of an encounter foretold

Dindigul Pandi died yesterday. Or, maybe, the day before; I can’t be sure. No, I am not celebrating Albert Camus’ existentialism here– just that nobody seems to be sure about police encounters that lay to rest dreaded criminals in Tamil Nadu with a bullet in the chest—or, sometimes, in the middle of the forehead.

Pandi, a mercenary with scores of cases against him, took a bullet each on either side of his chest and another in the abdomen. I have my sympathies for self-proclaimed human rights activists who cry foul whenever a gangster is gunned down. After all, that’s the oxygen of their existence, not existentialism. What I am more amused by is the sheer laziness of the police in staging a more credible encounter.

Take the case of Pandi. Around 4 pm, newspaper offices got a call from the city police breaking the news of the shootout that felled Pandi. Reporters and photographers were invited to the spot – a relatively deserted avenue off the scenic East Coast Road leading to a beach by the Bay of Bengal – where the police commissioner would brief them about the heroic act of his boys.

What they probably did not know then was that the same newspaper offices had received a call from an anonymous person, a good four hours earlier, saying that Pandi will be bumped off anytime. "Police are going to gun down Dindigul Pandi at Bhavani (in Erode district, 400 km from Chennai)" said the female voice in Tamil. While the cops gave a blow-by-blow account of the encounter in Chennai, later, one of Pandi’s relatives said he was picked up from Bhavani the previous day.

So, here is the police story: On a tip-off that Pandi, an absconding criminal, was moving in a Scorpio car on East Coast Road, a nine-member police team was assigned to get him. The police car spotted Pandi sitting on the front seat, beside his driver-associate Velu. On seeing the cops, they took a turn towards the beach. The police vehicle overtook Pandi’s car and blocked its way. Velu got out and attacked the police with a sword and lobbed two country bombs. Pandian swished out a pistol and opened fire. Three cops were injured. Police opened four rounds of fire, three hitting Pandi, and one Velu. They were rushed to a hospital, where they were declared ‘brought dead.’

When reporters reached the spot, the Kurukshetra had all the props of a violent street play—footwear: two pairs; sword: one; pistol: one; country-made bombs: remains of one exploded, one unexploded; blood stains: ample. Tamil Nadu police have been quite creative with encounter scripts, but what is often lacking is an audience. The lobbing of bombs and exchange of fire are said to have gone on for ten minutes from 3.10 pm. But, none of the neighbours had heard anything. There was no witness.

Human rights activists say that often encounter ‘victims’ are taken into custody, killed and taken to the spot of encounter where the ‘settings’ are done. Rarely, the bullet leaves the gun at the spot.

It’s tough on the cops. The criminals, who kill at will and spawn more of their ilk to keep the town’s underbelly throbbing dangerously, don’t get their comeuppance so fast in the long-winding corridors of justice. Prisons are often their sanctuaries for hibernation and planning. Many jump bail to get back to the bloody business. No wonder, so, that some officers share the conviction that between courts and prisons, often it’s a bullet that delivers.

In the early 2000s, when Chennai saw a spate of encounters that virtually wiped out the top names of the city’s aspiring underworld, I was interviewing a top cop I respect for his strategies and conviction. I was poking at the glaring chinks in the police stories, and the officer, improvising on the script laboriously, was bent on convincing me. He got a couple of other officers to act out the scene to prove how a single bullet fired from a long distance pierced the centre of the gangster’s forehead without injuring a cop who was wrestling with him.

"Now," the officer said, "are you convinced?" I shook my head. "Okay," he continued, "If you were in my shoes, what would you have done?" I fell silent for a moment, and replied: "The same you’ve done." The officer stood up, looked into my eyes and extended his hand. It was a firm handshake.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, assistant resident editor of The Times Of India in Chennai, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things.

If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycoph. . .